He lived for his work and family

Sunday

May 27, 2007 at 12:01 AM

By Jana Clancey, Star-News Correspondent

Billy Hewett stopped to smell the roses a little too late in life. He was the type of man who worked to live and then lived to work, family members said.He learned he had diabetes a few months after retiring from a 30-year janitorial post at Hoggard High School four years ago. Within two years, he lost part of a leg and "became a different person," his daughter Renee Wilson said. He died May 17 at age 69.William M. "Billy" Hewett began supporting his family at age 9, at first acting as a lawn boy for J C Parker House Moving, cleaning up lots and, later, moving buildings and houses. It was employment he carried on and off for 40 years.He dropped out of school and also took on handyman jobs, painting, fixing things and doing some carpentry in Wilmington, where he was born and raised, before moving across the river to Leland about 35 years ago."He was always a person that was working seven days a week. Very seldom was he at home for no reason at all," said Ernie Hewett, Hewett's younger brother. "He always felt like he needed to be doing something. Work was probably his hobby."He was hard-working and well-respected for it, Wilson said. He treated people the way he would want to be treated, and it earned him quite a bit of business for the side jobs he carried.Hewett typically held more than one job at a time throughout his life, including his odd ones in the offbeat sense. For about five years, during the late 1980s to early 1990s, Hewett was also known as "Billy Bob," a member of the Port City Clown Division."He had this amazing ability to make people laugh," said Wilson. "He could make the funniest faces."Hewett's silly side carried over into his family life, Wilson said. She remembers the way her father could turn the "worst day in the world" around in a moment.And he did his own laughing when he thought about the time he was an extra in Trick or Treat, a rocker/horror movie filmed in Wilmington in 1986. Because he knew so much about Hoggard High School, Hewett was asked to be an extra when the crew filmed there, Wilson said. He wore his own uniform and appeared in a handful of scenes in which characters milled about and ran through the school'shallways, passing the idle school janitor, she said."He would always say how he got more exposure than the other extras. He was in a movie, and that really tickled him," Wilson said.He was accustomed to spending long days at the school. He would get called in at all hours, sometimes for special events and at other times to deal with vandalism, Wilson said."He was always the one to know what was going on. He always made sure everything was taken care of," she said.Hewett took very few vacations through the course of his life, Ernie Hewett said. "Like a lot of us, he got caught up in life. He stopped to smell the roses too late."The few trips he did take were special to him, Wilson said. He once went to the Bahamas and took a cruise to Bermuda. He and his late wife, Lib, also spent some time in Atlantic City.He tried to make those times when he wasn't at work special by fishing with his wife and daughter in the surf and off the pier on Carolina Beach. And as Wilson got older and began working, she would try to make time to take her dad back to the beach for some fishing."He could be dead dog tired, but he always had a good time," Wilson said.After all, he was with the people who mattered most to him.Getting married and having a daughter were the highlights of Billy Hewett's life, Wilson said.Metro Desk: 343-2217